‘For an economist, I’m quite a restrained forecaster – particularly about the future, so the joke goes. But it’s always worth going out on a limb from to time to time when you are sure of your footing. I have never been in any doubt that the two most dangerous ministers in the Albanese cabinet are Chris Bowen (B1) and Tony Burke (B2).

With a long history of disastrous decision-making – think here the Malaysian solution, franking credits – Climate Change and Energy Minister, Chris Bowen, was always destined to be a disaster in his portfolio.

The theory is that his real aim in life is to be Treasurer and while he held that portfolio for a few minutes in the dying days of the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd regime, his ambition has not been satisfied. Gosh, he has a book to update so he can slot himself in as one of Australia’s best treasurers.

But reality has a way of blocking dreams. Chalmers looks to be there for the long haul and there’s always Andrew Charlton in the wings as well as motivated Home Affairs Minister, Clare O’Neil. The next best manoeuvre is to leap-frog this lot and become prime minister when Albo has had enough or stuffs up.

In order to achieve this, B1 needs the Left to support him. He is in an ideal portfolio to attract this support because of their fervent support for climate action – OK, I know that’s a bit vague but bear with me – and their rabid hatred of fossil fuels.

Of course, he is being fed a constant diet by his advisers and the bureaucrats in his department that rapid decarbonisation is essential and that renewables are the cheapest form of energy. The steady stream of rent-seekers entering his office reinforces these messages; most go away with big smiles on their faces.

The fact that he would actually enumerate the challenge ahead to meet his government’s target of 82 per cent of electricity generated by renewables by 2030 tells us the la-la land in which he is living – coupled with his driving political ambition. 40 turbines and 670,000 solar panels per month as well as 10,000 kilometres of additional transmission lines – sure, B1.

No doubt he is also trying to ignore the informed comments of Jeff Dimery of Alinta Energy that it costs $8 billion in renewable energy installations and associated infrastructure to replace a $1 billion coal-fired plant. How that could possibly lead to lower electricity prices is anyone’s guess.

B2, Workplace Relations and Employment Minister, Tony Burke, has been on a roll with the passing of the Secure Jobs, Better Pay legislation late last year, courtesy of that doyen of best-practice policy, Senator David Pocock. It’s hard to single out the worst feature of these new laws – the scope for multi-employer bargaining, easy access to arbitration, the infiltration of unions in every aspect of the employer-worker relationship notwithstanding unionisation being at 12.5 per cent. As one employment lawyer declared, the real title of the law should be UnionChoices.

But B2 is not finished. There will be a second tranche of industrial relations amendments this year that aim to kill off the gig economy (or at least insist on union interference) and labour hire arrangements. Mind you, it’s not just B2 who is on a promise; the Prime Minister also needs to reward the unions by legislating for ‘same job, same pay’, notwithstanding the looseness of this motto.

But let me get onto Ed Husic, Minister for Industry and Science. I hadn’t really noticed him much apart from the fact that he was dropped from the shadow ministry at some stage. Take it from me, he is turning out to be a complete shocker, albeit one with not too much power at this stage.

He is a typical Labor hack. After obtaining a degree from the University of Western Sydney – BA in Applied Communications, no less – he took the normal route to becoming a Labor parliamentarian, including a stint as an official for the CEPU (which mainly covers public sector tradies). His hysterical aversion to privatisation stems from this experience.

In his portfolio, he is responsible for implementing the dubious $15 billion National Reconstruction Fund, a giant pot of money to subsidise Labor’s favourite highly unionised sectors. And here’s what Ed had to say about this: ‘among some in the community there is still this rusted-on sense that when it comes to industry policy, governments should not be “picking winners” – that governments should only be considered as investors of last resort, intervening when the market has failed. This is a diminished view of the role of government and a missed opportunity. Governments can and should strategically and thoughtfully invest in the industries of the future’.

There you have it: governments are actually really good at picking winners – strategically and thoughtfully, of course – and we will all be richer as a result. Sure.

But what really caught my attention were Ed’s insane comments about the gas industry and the need for price controls. He sounded like a reincarnated Ted Wheelwright, the communist professor who almost single-handedly ruined the economics department at Sydney University.

According to Ed, ‘a lot of these (gas) firms underestimate how poorly they are viewed in the public’s mind, and the last thing they need to do is behave in such a recalcitrant way that goes against their long-term interests. These companies are behaving just like big tech in threatening nations when they don’t like a regulatory response that’s done in the national economic interest. It is unacceptable’.

Reflecting his support for gas-using manufacturing and its unionised workforce, he simply proclaimed that, ‘we had to get to this point because the gas sector refused to listen to the Australian public that is saying we should not be paying overseas prices for an Australian resource. We should be strengthening the capability of the economy, levering on the availability of such a great Australian resource, and the sector hasn’t listened’.

Wow and wow. One presumes that he is making these incendiary and unhelpful remarks with the blessing of the Prime Minister – the old good cop, bad cop routine. But if Ed really believes this stuff, we must add him to the list of dangerous ministers, along with B1 and B2.